This article on advance care directives has been updated on August 5, 2022. Advance care directives are evolving – and there’s so much more to know beyond the usual questions of “Do I need to have an advanced care directive?” and “Who needs to know about it?” For example how … Read more
This article was updated 3 August, 2022. Palliative care advocates, this one’s for you, as a new palliative care community of practice has been announced by NSW Health. And what’s better, they are calling for participants for their palliative care community of practice. This is incredibly important work as Covid … Read more
This article was updated on 22 July, 2022. This week the Aged Care Quality released a new fact sheet for aged care service providers titled ‘How prepared for a Covid-19 outbreak are you?’. It comes as the inquest into Covid-19 deaths begins, with news reports focusing once again on the … Read more
This article was updated on July 20, 2022. It’s sobering to think that during Covid-19, just as the risk of death from domestic violence went up, so will deaths as a consequence of elder abuse. June 15 was World Elder Abuse Awareness Day. Cindy Smith, chief executive of the Australian … Read more
The families of those dying in residential aged care experienced intense levels of stress and suffering because of Covid-19 lockdowns, research from Melbourne confirms. While the research acknowledges something reported all over the world, the authors believe it is the first Australian qualitative study of the issues. Dr Paul Yates … Read more
Since we’re in the age of the milder Covid-19 Omicron variant we can all relax. Can’t we? Not really. Not if you live in aged care. Here we explain why the Covid-19 Omicron threat to aged care in Australia is worse than it should be. Covid-19’s progress through aged care … Read more
As the number of people dying at home from Covid-19 in NSW increases, Dr Jamal Rifi, of Belmore, warns this is not acceptable. There had been 30 deaths at home by last night (Monday, 27 September). Nearly half of these cases were not diagnosed until after death. “We should endeavour … Read more
Read the extended version of this story If you get a positive Covid-19 result, you will be told to isolate at home, no matter how fit you feel. NSW Health officers will contact you to talk about your health. You will receive regular police checks to ensure you are isolating. … Read more
We now have more Covid-19 cases in the community than we could hope to accommodate in hospital. Many will go on to recover without needing the intervention of ICU. But a percentage will need that intervention or they will die. Who will fall into this risk category? We need to … Read more
‘Stay at Home’ is now a police operation, as NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian more and more desperately urges Sydneysiders not to go out, so the city can fight Covid-19, its rapidly escalating infection rates and inevitable deaths. Across the world, we see enormous variations in the incidence of Covid-19 and … Read more
It might be time to scrutinise a report by a large non-government provider of health services in Australia – now that the second wave of Covid-19 threatens, this time in NSW. Back in April the Lessons Learnt from Covid19 report was released by Catholic Health Australia, the largest non-government provider … Read more
The answer is mostly no. How you feel about the risks is probably influenced by where you live. One of the paradoxes of the current situation for Australians is that our advantage of being isolated and far away from the places where Covid-19 has been rampant, is now our disadvantage. … Read more
We go back to Covid-19, which will never really leave us now – the idea of it is with us forever. Vaccines will make a huge difference, saving lives. Yes, at Good Grief! we talk about death, but facing off against Covid-19 is now part of that conversation. At the … Read more
“There is a growing concern that the welfare of health care staff needs to be addressed in the weeks and months ahead,” The BBC reports, as we check in on Covid-19 again today. There have been 107.937,561 cases of Covid-19 worldwide and 2,367,122 deaths. In the UK, there have been … Read more
Today, January 21, Worldometers says there have been 2,080,154 deaths from Covid-19, out of 97,218,195 infections. This as the new President of the USA, Joe Biden, on the eve of his inauguration grieved the 400,000 Covid-19 deaths in his country, saying: “To heal, we must remember.” “‘It’s hard sometimes to … Read more